Page 168 of The Earl She Once Saved

“I did not know Roland had found you,” he admitted.

“I know.”

It was the first time she could say it without a reservation following close behind.

Aunt Cordelia crossed the room. She took Verity’s hands in both of hers, though her own shook.

“I am sorry,” she trembled as she spoke, “for believing I knew what would keep you safe. For urging you toward him. For everything I told you to bear afterward.” She glanced at Roland and then back at her niece. “I did not know what he had done to Rafe’s letters, but I should have listened when you told me what he had done to you.”

Verity imagined hearing an apology in this room many times. She thought it would bring back every quarrel between them. Instead, she saw Aunt Cordelia’s gray face and the fear that brought her to tears on the stairs.

She held her aunt’s hands. “I know you are sorry.”

Aunt Cordelia bowed her head. Verity let her remain close.

Roland was silent. When Verity looked at him, she felt none of the need to win one last argument. He could continue to call this house his. Henshaw’s papers would answer what he had called her, and Rafe knew at last how Roland had kept them apart. She wanted Roland to leave the room so she could breathe without hearing his voice.

“Henshaw will speak with you about the documents,” she announced. “I have nothing more to say to you.”

Roland looked from her to Rafe. Whatever answer he might have made, he found no one waiting to believe it. He took his gloves from the chair and went out. Tunstall opened the door for him, then closed it again.

Verity heard Roland’s steps cross the hall. When they faded, she looked down at Aunt Cordelia’s hands still clasped in hers. The door had shut, and this time she was on the side of it she had chosen.

***

Later, the house grew quiet. Henshaw had taken the papers into the study and sent another message to the magistrate. Ezra went to rest at Win’s insistence, though Verity saw him pause to thank her before he climbed the stairs. Aunt Cordelia retired early. Verity remained in the library with the torn portrait laid out before her.

She fitted three edges together. The fourth resisted. She was still studying it when Rafe came in.

“You should be asleep,” she said.

“So should you.”

He stopped at the far side of the table. There was no one left to hear them now. Verity thought of the first day he had stood in this house, a stranger she believed had come to take everything she had saved. She looked at him until he came around to her side.

“Roland told the truth about the search?” she asked.

“He told enough of it. I wrote to everyone who might have known your father. I followed one answer for months before I learned it led nowhere.” His eyes met hers. “I would have come if I had known where you were.”

“I know that now.”

Rafe looked at the portrait but did not touch it. “I ought to let you rest.”

“Is that what you want?”

“No.”

He drew a slow breath. Verity could see him make the decision to stay.

“I loved you after that night in the hospital,” he confessed. “I had scarcely known you a day. For years I told myself I remembered you so clearly because you kept me alive. Then I came here and learned who you had become. I loved you when I believed you were my brother’s wife. I hated myself for it, and I could not stop.”

Verity gripped the table’s edge. He told her almost as much in the garden without saying the words. Hearing them now left her with no place to hide what she felt.

“There has only ever been you,” he continued. “I do not ask you to answer me tonight. I wanted you to know it from me, without Roland or anyone else standing between us.”

For so long she had believed love would leave her helpless in someone else’s hands. She trusted Rafe before she knew what he felt, and he had given her room to decide what she wanted. He stood waiting now with no demand upon her.

“I used to think I imagined what passed between us in the hospital,” she admitted. “Then you came home, and I tried to make myself believe the man I remembered had nothing to do with the one before me.”